Complete Marvel Reading Order News and Reviews

by Charlie Brooks, CMRO Contributing Writer

Incredible Hulk

Issue #105

Written by Greg Pak, Art by Carlo Pagulayan

Published: June 2007

This is the story of the Green Scar. The Eye of Anger. The World Breaker Harkanon. Haarg. Holku. Hulk. And how he finally came home.

These words serve as bookends to the Planet Hulk saga, of which The Incredible Hulk #105 represents the final chapter. When we last left the Hulk, the ship that had exiled him from Earth had just suffered a warp core breach, exploding in the middle of King Hulk’s capital city and threatening the entire planet. We knew from the beginning that this story was going to end sadly, but we didn’t know exactly how much knife-twisting there would be until this issue.

The Hulk’s Warbound are scattered across Sakaar on their various diplomatic missions at the start of the issue. The Hulk and Caiera aren’t nearly so lucky, being trapped right at ground zero of the blast. The Hulk shields Caiera with his body while yelling her name, to which Caiera tells him that she will never leave him. Ominous words indeed.

Across Sakaar, the effects of the warp core breach shake the planet. The fragile tectonic plates start to crack under the force, causing Hiroim to sink down into the lava, convinced that the planet has finally met its doom. Hiroim is saved by Korg, who tells his friend to either pick himself up and get going or that the stone man will jump down in the lava and die with his friend. Loyalty has been a big theme in Planet Hulk, and here we see friends once again willing to die for friends. Luckily, Korg won’t be dying right yet, as his words get Hiroim going again.

The art, as always, is spectacular here, but there is one minor complaint to be lodged about the coloring. Given the massive amount of destruction and loss of life, the Warbound are naturally shaken to tears by the event – even the Brood. The problem comes when the colorist didn’t properly color in the Brood’s tears, making them almost unnoticeable as they were the same color as the creature’s hide. Why is this so important? Because among fans at the time that this issue came out, there was a lot of speculation that the Brood, a member of the species that had long antagonized the X-Men, was one of the saboteurs who had helped destroy Sakaar. Had we readers properly seen her weeping, it would have greatly changed the conspiracy theories about her involvement – perhaps not absolving her of suspicion, but leaving a lot more doubt as to her actual role in the destruction of Sakaar.

Despite that hiccup, this issue provides us with more of the sweeping, grand art that we’ve seen – but emphasizing tragedy rather than light-hearted action this time. This is most apparent at the climax of the issue, where Caiera, killed despite the Hulk’s attempt to save her, disintegrates into dust while still in the Hulk’s arms – a sad parallel to the little girl who died in Caiera’s arms just before she joined the Warbound against the Red King.

And here I have to lodge my other complaint about this issue: the death of Caiera. I don’t believe that it’s badly done, but I do think that it is an instance where writer Greg Pak erred in that he threw away a character with a lot of potential. Caiera was unique among the Hulk’s many love interests over the years. She had the power to fight alongside our jade giant. She loved both the Hulk and Banner, recognizing them as equals. All that said, she fell for the Hulk first, as opposed to most other love interests whose primary concern was the man inside the monster. She had chemistry and character, and even the best writers can only strike lightning like that a few times in her career. But now she’s literally dust in the wind, leaving this character gone before her potential was fully realized.

That said, the purpose of Planet Hulk was to leave the Hulk madder than he had ever been before so Marvel could present their next big event, World War Hulk. And the death of a great character like Caiera, not to mention the Hulk’s unborn child, is enough to accomplish that. Moreover, it’s enough to make the readers angry as well. We just spent 14 issues watching the Hulk rise from slave to king and becoming a hero to this planet. Now thanks to the carelessness of the Illuminati, everything has been undone. Granted, we don’t know for sure that there wasn’t something else going on with the warp core breach, but had the supposed heroes that make up the Illuminati considered giving the Hulk his right of due process or even just checking to make sure the ship landed where they expected it to, then millions of people on Sakaar would still be alive. The heroes were more like villains, and people have died because of them. So now the audience is at least partially on the Hulk’s side, waiting for him to mete out green-fisted justice.

And that’s what we’re promised to close out Planet Hulk. The Hulk goes into a rage, smashing mountains while screaming, “Bring them back!” which is a nice display of how even this more intelligent version of the Hulk is very childlike in some ways and capable of throwing one monster of a tantrum. The Hulk’s rage ends with a quieter, “Bring her back,” which is one more tear-jerker in case you have a heart of stone and don’t feel sad at what the character has lost yet. Then the rest of the Warbound arrive and give the chance for the Hulk to seek vengeance. They climb into their great stone ship and head for Earth. The Hulk forges a sword as we get the captions that opened the saga once again. This time, the caption, “And how he came home” is on the final splash page – an amazing picture of the Hulk on top of the stone ship, his sword out and ready for battle, speeding through space with his mouth open in a scream of rage.

Ladies and gentlemen, the heroes of Marvel Earth are officially screwed.

And that’s the end of Planet Hulk. How does it measure up when all is said and done? Quite frankly, it’s one of the best Hulk stories ever told, and that is not hyperbole. The Hulk has gone to alien planets before, but never have they been as fully realized as Sakaar. Never have we had 14 full issues, including a giant-sized issue #100 and a pair of bonus stories in Giant-Size Hulk #1, to fully explore the ramifications of the Hulk getting exiled. The writing starts out as fun, then becomes more serious, and finally ends with a well-executed tragedy. The art is consistently wonderful throughout. And in an age of decompressed storytelling, this saga never felt padded out for a trade paperback. Every single issue contributes to the ultimate resolution, and every single one has a lot to offer readers.

Planet Hulk is truly a Marvel masterpiece. If you haven’t read it yet, go and check out the trade paperback. Issue for issue, you will not find a better collection of stories from the last ten years.

by Charlie Brooks, CMRO Contributing Writer

Incredible Hulk

Issue #104

Written by Greg Pak, Art by Carlo Pagulayan

Published: May 2007

At the end of Planet Hulk: Allegiance, things were looking pretty good for our jade giant. The Red King of Sakaar had been overthrown, the Hulk had been installed as the new ruler, he had stopped a schism among his Warbound, and he had gained a wife. Unfortunately, comic book law means that the status quo will always return eventually – and for the Hulk, that usually means the destruction of everything and everyone he holds dead. With that in mind, we now turn to The Incredible Hulk #104, which gives us part one of the aptly-named two-part Planet Hulk: Armageddon story. It is with a slight hesitation that I begin to review the first and last days of the Green Scar’s rule as king.

The issue opens with our hero enjoying his short-lived happy ending, cuddling up with his new wife Caiera in bed. He is disturbed by Miek, who summons him to the ruined space shuttle that the Illuminati had sent over. Watching Reed Richards’ message to Bruce Banner, the Hulk gets angry and smashes the screen, then leaves with these cryptic words: “They tried to kill me.”

As with the Hulk’s earlier recount of his origin story where he suggested that Banner tried to kill him in the gamma bomb blast that created him, these words are just begging for fans to run with their own interpretation. It’s a charming quality of Greg Pak’s writing, honestly – rather than tell us what is on the character’s mind, he is giving us hints and letting us draw our own conclusions. It works particularly well with a character with is nearly 50 years old and who has had hundreds of stories told about him. My personal interpretation is that, had Banner wound up being exiled to the happy, uninhabited planet that the Illuminati originally had planned, he would have lived a peaceful life. A peaceful life means no more Hulk, who thrives on conflict and battle. As such, the Hulk would see such an existence as death. But again, that is just one fan’s interpretation – the actual quote is open-ended enough that you can interpret it in any way you like.

Despite the Hulk’s outburst, he seems to have put smashing the Illuminati pretty low on his to-do list. In fact, he seems actively afraid of losing what he has earned on Sakaar, as evidenced by the next scene where he takes Caiera out to the wild steppes where Caeira had given him a chance to escape to at the beginning of this saga. This time the Hulk really does want to leave, but with Caiera at his side. But the new bride of the Hulk is not about to let her husband and king be left alone – not when the blood he bled brought vegetation back to the land, and especially not after she drops the bombshell that she is pregnant with the Hulk’s son.

That last bit is a great surprise for the Hulk, but it’s basically a punch to the gut for the readers. It basically paints a bull’s-eye of Caiera’s back telling us that something really bad is about to happen to either her or her son. For some reason, comic books really seem to hate happy families, as evidenced by Peter Parker selling his marriage to the Devil, Clark Kent and Lois Lane getting unmarried via retcon, or the Hulk’s own Betty Banner having a miscarriage in the late 1980s due to the unfortunate editorial reasoning that readers wouldn’t sympathize with Betty if she was a mother. It’s a sad world that comic book families live in, and the conception of the Hulk’s son just adds to the tension as we approach the bad thing that we know is about to happen.

Unfortunate implications aside, though, this is the essence of suspense – the readers know something horrible is going to happen, while the characters remain blissfully ignorant. And with every passing happy moment, we as readers start to squirm even more because we know it’s almost all over.

The issue has some very good character moments to it. The Hulk has his people rebuild from the destruction caused by the Red king, leading Elloe to compare the toils to slavery. Miek responds that sometimes something needs to be torn down to build again, which is some more ominous foreshadowing on Pak’s part. The Hulk shows off his might even when calm by helping to get the spikes off planet and back to the cosmos where they will no longer need to feed on the living, immediately followed by hi jumping from orbit all the way to Sakaar’s surface. He naturally is greeted on the ground by Caiera, and the two share an embrace. For a moment, everything looks happy.

But then that bad thing we’ve all known was coming happens. While the crowd cheers their new king – at the high point of the Hulk’s life – the shuttle that brought the Hulk to Sakaar begins beeping. The video from Reed Richards starts playing. And a warning that the warp core has been breached goes off. The issue ends with the Hulk screaming, “Stupid. Puny. Humans!” and trying to shield Caeira from the resulting explosion. And we’re all left on the edge of our seats for another month.

This story almost hurts to read, but it hurts in a good way. We want the Hulk to finally have his happy moment, but we know it’s all about to end. And Pak, assisted again by the excellent pencils and layouts of Carlo Pagulayan, twists the knife every chance he gets. The final page isn’t a surprise, but it still leaves the reader with a tragic feeling. Now the only question is: what will be left after the smoke clears?